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In this March 29, 2011 file photo, the five plaintiffs in a case of women employees against Wal-Mart, from left, Stephanie Odle, of Norman, Okla., Betty Dukes, of Pittsburg, Calif., Deborah Gunter, of Palm Springs, Calif., Christine Kwapnoski, of Bay Point, Calif., and Edith Arena, of Duarte, Calif. pose for a photograph outside the Supreme Court in Washington. The Supreme Court has ruled for Wal-Mart in its fight to block a massive sex discrimination lawsuit on behalf of women who work there. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

(UPDATED WITH WAL-MART RESPONSE AT 1:02 p.m.)
Stephanie Odle is still fighting her former employer, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., just as she vowed to do 15 years ago.

The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals is allowing Odle, one of the original members of the class of women who sued Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club in 2001, to proceed with her own case against Wal-Mart.

The original lawsuit, Betty Dukes, et al. v. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. was the largest employment discrimination lawsuit in U.S. history. After several years of litigation, the U.S. Supreme Court decertified the Dukes class of 1.5 million women in June 2011.

Odle filed another lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Dallas on October 2011 on behalf of herself and other “present and former female Wal-Mart retail store employees who have been subjected to gender discrimination as a result of specific policies and practices in Wal-Mart’s regions located in whole or in part in Texas.”

Wal-Mart operates 493 stores in Texas and has 154,471 employees in the state.

Wal-Mart moved to dismiss both Odle’s and the class claims saying time had lapsed beyond limits in the law.

Odle appealed, and on Monday the Fifth Circuit said the U.S. District Court in Dallas should rehear her case. Odle and others alleged that Wal-Mart had denied women equal opportunities for promotion to management track positions and equal pay for hourly store positions and for salaried management positions.

Wal-Mart spokesman Randy Hargrove called the Appeal’s Court decision a procedural step that allows the case to go forward on an individual basis.

“This goes back to what we’ve said all along. Someone who believes they’ve been been treated unfairly, deserves to have their individual claims heard in court,” Hargrove said.

Odle filed her original discrimination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 1998. She went to work for Wal-Mart when she was 19 years old in 1991 at a Sam’s Club in Lubbock. She was promoted several times to jobs in California and Nevada and to Sam’s Clubs in Dallas and Sherman.

She was fired from a job in Lubbock in 1999 and replaced by a man who wanted a transfer, Odle said. When the case was certified as a class in 2004, Odle said in an interview with The Dallas Morning News that a Wal-Mart human resources manager told her that many had tried to sue Wal-Mart without success.

A federal court judge in Tennessee has given final approval to a $140 million settlement agreement that will end Dean Foods’ involvement in a long-running, multi-district class action suit alleging price-fixing in the dairy industry.

Dallas-based Dean, the nation’s largest dairy producer, said in a statement it continues “to be confident that we operated appropriately in the Southeast.
“We settled the case to avoid the expense, uncertainty and distraction of litigation and the likelihood of a lengthy appeals process,” the statement said. “We believe the settlement agreement provides for a fair resolution of the issues and appreciate the court’s approval.”

In the suit, filed about four years ago, Dean and several other defendants were accused of conspiring to depress prices paid to dairy farmers in the Southeast.